


Like Rust Upon Iron

by nosmokingpistol



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 09:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15140066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosmokingpistol/pseuds/nosmokingpistol
Summary: Two old soldiers reconnect and find forgiveness.





	Like Rust Upon Iron

**Author's Note:**

> _"Guilt upon the conscience--like rust upon iron--both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal." --Bishop Robert South_

 

Sylvia Noble stood at the kitchen window and frowned as she spoke into the phone. "I'm worried, Donna. It's like the spark's going out of him. He said he wanted to cut back the last of the autumn roses and now he's just standing in the garden like he's forgotten why he went out there!"

"Oh, we've all done that Mum! Last night I sent Shaun down the shop for some cream crackers and he brought me back shortbread! Just the thought of it set me off again."

"It'll get better dear. I was right as rain by four months. Mind you I wasn't carrying twins!" Sylvia watched as Wilfred Mott sat heavily on the garden bench and watched a squirrel preen itself. "There he goes staring at squirrels again. He's been like this since the spring!"

"Since the wedding, I know. I thought he'd come 'round when we told him about the babies." Donna sighed and absently rubbed at her belly. "Do you think it's me? Do you think he misses me, I mean? Only we've been so busy with the Foundation I haven't spent time with him like I used to."

Sylvia smiled into the phone. "All of those children you're helping, all of the good you and Shaun are doing with that money—you're father would be so proud of you, sweetheart." Once again she silently thanked the Doctor for her late husband's wedding gift by proxy.

"Yeah." Donna had to smile herself as she heard the pride in her mother's voice. "Tell you what--why don’t you and Gramps come for Sunday roast? A nice bit of pork and my butter tart should set him right!"

"I'll go one better with my fried apples! If all of that fat doesn't put a smile on his face, I'll know why!"

*** *** ***

The chill of the crisp and clear October night didn't seem to penetrate his bones the way it used to. Wilfred Mott supposed that was a good thing, although he knew his Sylvia would disagree. She'd have him off to some clinic for dead nerve syndrome or some such nonsense. Well, she didn't have to know everything, did she? Sometimes it was best not to know too much.

He finished the last of the tea, pushed himself off of the old folding chair and stood at the telescope again. He squinted and peered through the eyepiece as he swiveled the body slowly on its axis, covering the visible sky inch by painstaking inch. He'd best be heading back soon, before his daughter came to check on him. She worried too much, bless her, and the last thing he wanted to do was worry her more. If he did that she'd ask questions, and she'd asked too many already.

She'd become fond of the Doctor in those last days. When he'd saved the world again, and then come back with that lottery ticket bought with Geoffrey's money, he'd practically been elevated to sainthood in her eyes, not that they could talk about it around Donna. He'd told Sylvia in a private moment how the Doctor had saved his life from that radiation--how he'd almost died in agony doing it, even if he had yelled at Wilf a bit for getting stuck in there in the first place, and wouldn't return Wilf's hug when he'd got out. Quite right too, he supposed. After all, the Doctor had warned him not to go in there.

Sylvia had wept grateful tears for the Doctor, and shared her father's joy when they saw him alive and well at the wedding. Only Wilf had had his doubts when he saw the Doctor standing there watching them, at the end. He had never smiled, not once. Never returned his salute, never even waved goodbye. His eyes had been cold, and unforgiving, and in that last moment before he'd turned and gone into that magic phone box of his Wilf had suddenly been sure of it: the Doctor was dying, and it was his fault. Now, months later, he still fervently hoped he had been wrong.

Wilf stood upright and stretched a bit to loosen up his aching back. He wiped away the fresh tears that had sprung from the memory, as they did every night. Maybe this would be the night he'd see that big blue box again. Maybe the Doctor would stand in the doorway waving, like he had that first time he took Donna away to the stars. Maybe Wilf could finally forgive himself then, even if the Doctor might not. Or, Wilf thought, with too many disappointing nights behind him, maybe he'd never be back. Maybe the Doctor was dead and gone after all.

The crunch of dried leaves under boots signaled someone's approach, and Wilf steeled himself for the inevitable reprimand from his daughter for staying out in the cold. He looked up, a curt retort at the tip of his tongue, and saw a young man standing there. Wilf stiffened a little, wary of a stranger on the dark allotment. He took in the man's thin build, bandy legs and overly large features and relaxed a bit. He looked the spitting image of Billy Whitlow down the street. Must be his boy, that one who wrote for television, home from America.

"Hello! It's a lovely night for stargazing, isn't it?" the stranger said as he reached the old man. "Bit chilly, though, you should be wearing an anorak. Anoraks are cool."

Wilf laughed at that. "You sound like my girl Sylvia! So you're Billy's boy then? The one in Hollywood? I haven't seen you since you were a pup!"

The stranger chuckled and bounced on his heels once or twice before answering. "I don't live in Hollywood, Wilfred. I live out there..." he waved vaguely at the canopy of stars "...in a big blue box." His smile faded as he watched a look of fear and horror appear on Wilf's face.

"You're not him! You're not him, he was taller and he had that sticky-uppy hair and those great big eyes! You--" Wilf picked up the thermos and wielded it with one shaking hand. "You just get out! Get out of here!" The Doctor held up his hands.

"It's me Wilf, it's all right. It's the Doctor, it's me. The man you knew is gone."

"He said he could change, but..." The old man peered closer, still uncertain. "Prove it!"

The Doctor smiled sadly. "I borrowed a quid from a lovely man. Geoffrey Noble, his name was."

"Oh my word!" Wilf dropped the thermos and took a step back. His look of awe was almost immediately replaced with one of sorrow as he fully understood. His friend--his Doctor--was dead, and this new man had sauntered in to take his place. Tears filled his rheumy eyes and he blinked them away. "All my fault. He said I was like... like his death, waiting for him."

The Doctor stepped closer and looked earnestly at Wilf. "Listen to me Wilf. His death was a fixed point. It should have happened when the Earth was stolen, when that Dalek shot him in the street. Everything that happened since then was Time correcting itself; it just used you as its instrument."

"But he said it was my fault, because I went in that radiation box thing, and..."

The Doctor threw up his hands and paced in a tight circle. "And... And...  That's the thing isn't it? The big _and_ , that's where it all went wrong. And you knocked four times--not three, not five, no of course not, that would have been too simple! As if that wasn't bad enough, you gave four knocks--four times!" He stopped pacing and visibly slumped, shaking his head. "He felt betrayed, because he loved you, and you did something stupid and it cost him his life. He didn't understand, not until the very end."

Wilf cautiously approached the Doctor. "Why? What happened then?"

"Just before he changed, when that Doctor was..."   

 _When he was burning, when his flesh was melting and it was agony, it was such agony when every cell began to explode and I remember every second of it_    

 "When he was dying, the timelines around his death snapped into place, and he could see them. He saw everything that was, that could be, that must be from the moment of his creation. He could see the death that should have been."

Wilf struggled to understand. "You mean, like...he died at the wrong time?"

"If it hadn't been you, it would have been the technician you replaced. He would still have gone into that chamber, and the timelines would still have led right back to the day of his birth. He lost his hand, and grew it back--and from that moment on, that radiation chamber was waiting for him because without that spare hand he would have died when he was meant to."

"So are we all right then Doctor, you and I? Did he forgive me at the end?"

The Doctor could see the pain and guilt that still clouded Wilf's face. He reached out his arms and placed his hands on Wilf's shoulders, squeezing them gently. "Wilfred. He couldn't forgive you and neither can I--because there's nothing to forgive. None of it was your fault. He tried to cheat death--and he lost." The old man shook as he began to weep and the Doctor drew him close and enfolded him into his arms. "The real question is...can you forgive me?"

Wilf composed himself and drew back. He scrubbed his hand over his face and shook his head. "For what? I mean, we've just met, eh? You've not done anything."

"I'm still the Doctor, Wilfred. The one you knew and all the ones before him are a part of me." The Doctor studied his boots for a moment. "I know how guilt sits in the hearts. You should never have been made to feel responsible. You shouldn't have had to carry that burden."

"Well, it was..." Wilf frowned and idly picked at the buttons on his wool jacket. "No harm done, eh? Water under the bridge."

The Doctor looked up and smiled. "Thank you" he said. "Now--I should be going. It's Christmas somewhere and I have things to do!" He turned away and immediately spun back, much to Wilf's amusement. He chewed his lip for a moment before speaking so quietly it was almost a whisper. "Wilfred...is she happy?"

With renewed enthusiasm Wilf came closer, always happy to talk about his favorite topic. "Oh, she is, oh my yes! She and Shaun started this foundation, like a charity for children who have serious problems, you know, like cancer or a blindness they can fix. They fly 'em in from all over--the Middle East, Africa, India. Some of them kids stepped on mines and lost their arms and legs, the poor dears." He smiled softly. "You should see her, Doctor. She'd make you proud!"

The Doctor fought back tears. "I am Wilf. Oh, completely. My Donna--saving the world one child at a time." He turned to walk away and Wilf called after him.

"Doctor? There's something else." The Time Lord turned again and raised a quizzical eyebrow. "They're expecting. She's four months gone, now. Having twins."

"Twins? Twins..." the Doctor murmured, tapping his pursed lips with his finger before shouting "Twins!" He rushed to Wilf's telescope and brandished his sonic screwdriver. Wilf hurried over, nervously watching as it hummed and whirred over the tracking mechanism, timer and lens.

"What's that you're doing?" he asked. He began to worry in earnest when the eyepiece glowed orange. The Doctor waited until the whirring had stopped before replying. When he finally looked up he was grinning from ear to ear.

"There's a small planetoid in orbit around Pollux, one of the twin stars in the Gemini constellation. It's a remnant of a larger planet, completely encased in frozen gasses, and its core is very unstable. In two days it's going to go into an axial shift and break apart."

"Ooh! Could it hurt someone, can you stop it?" The Doctor grabbed Wilf by the ears and kissed him on top of the head.

"You are a kind and thoughtful man--now be quiet. A large piece of that planetoid is going to pass through a burst of gamma rays coming from Geminga--that's a neutron star--and get drawn into a wormhole in the low density area. It will stay there until it loops around and emerges in the Local Bubble."

"How local?"

"It's on the outskirts of your solar system. And it's going to happen in three weeks. On October twenty-seventh the tracking system I've modified will point your telescope exactly at its exit point, Wilf. You'll be the first to see it--just a little flash of blue light. A brand new comet that's been to the end of the Universe and back!"

Wilf chuckled at the Doctor's self satisfied grin. "That old telescope's not strong enough to see that far, Doctor."

"It is now--a little Doctor flim flam!" The Doctor drew a note pad and pen from his pocket and began scribbling as he spoke." "When it exits the wormhole it's going to be travelling at an incredible rate of speed--unheard of velocity for a comet--as it skips over Pluto and catches the gravity field of your sun. Then it will slingshot into its own elliptical orbit just outside of Neptune."

The Doctor handed Wilf the scrap of paper, beaming. Wilf looked at the symbols and figures and although the first set looked like a phone number he saw no discernable pattern in the others. "What's this then? More lottery numbers?"

"Oh, better than that Wilfred--it's the number for the Royal Meteorological Society. Call them exactly twenty-seven minutes after you've seen that flash of light. Ask for Professor Clive Denton, he owes me a favor. Tell him you've just seen a new comet come into view and give him those coordinates."

Wilf held the paper tightly and looked at it with awe. "A brand new comet! My word..."

"Mott's Comet! First visible just as it emerges from behind Saturn, twenty-seven minutes after leaving that worm hole. Saturn's gravity will quickly cause it to slow down to a typical orbital velocity." The Doctor laughed as Wilf's eyes grew huge. "In seventy-two years it will pass by the Earth for the first time. Isn't that brilliant?"

"Yeah, I won't see that, though!" Wilf had to chuckle at the idea.

"No. But Donna's children, and her children's children, and their children will all stand under the stars and look up at Mott's Comet--and they'll tell the story of the man who saw it first." Wilf's shining eyes and smile were all the thanks the Doctor needed or wanted. He gave the other man's shoulder a squeeze and cleared his throat. "Well then. Time to go." He held out his hand and Wilf shook it warmly.

"Will I see you again, sir?"

The Doctor smiled, a little sadly Wilf thought. "I don't think so. But she will, Wilf. A long time from now, at the end of her days, she'll see me again. And she will remember." The Doctor turned and walked into the night as Wilf stood silently at attention and saluted his friend for the last time.

*** *** ***

Sylvia stretched her neck and shoulders and carefully placed a bookmark fifty-seven pages from the end of the thick paperback she had been reading. _"Hmmph!"_ she groused to herself. Fifty Shades of Filth would have been a better title! The sound of the back door opening roused her from her wing-backed chair and she called out as she headed for the kitchen. "Well it's about time, it's nearly half ten! I was just going to--what on earth are you doing?"

"Hello sweetheart!" Wilf said as he opened and closed cupboards with an energy belying his age. "Have we got any artichokes?"

"No, I haven't done the marketing and--hold on! Why do you need artichokes at this hour?"

"I thought I'd make that special dip Donna likes, you know, with the spinach. Thought it might taste good to her, since we're going for dinner and all." Eyes twinkling, Wilf rubbed his hands together, eager to get on with his task.

Sylvia opened her mouth, ready to lecture him about the effects of rich creamy dips on nauseous pregnant women and the folly of making an appetizer on Wednesday night for a Sunday roast. He smiled at her, a face-splitting grin that she hadn't seen for far too long, and she caught herself. She didn't know what had happened out on the allotment to lift his spirits, but whatever it was she blessed it.

"Tell you what, Dad. Sit down and make a list for the grocer's and I'll put the kettle on. Do you fancy some biscuits?" Wilf nodded and quickly put pen to paper whilst she readied the tea. The little kitchen seemed that much brighter to Sylvia as she basked in the warm light of her father's smile.

 


End file.
